


Shadows on My Wall

by anr



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 13:50:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16242935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: She knows she's not the only one who talks to them.





	Shadows on My Wall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rivulet027](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivulet027/gifts).



> Request: Any SGU fic at all would make me so happy!
> 
> Title taken from Matchbox 20's "Unwell".

  


* * *

  


She starts talking to the kinos about a month in.

It's not intentional -- at first she's not even aware she's doing it -- it's just something that happens. She'll be on a run, on a patrol, wandering even, and suddenly there'll be a little flying ball of metal nearby, hovering and humming.

"Whatcha got there?"

Bending at the waist, she lets her stretch take her closer to the wall panel its buzzing near, eyeing the markings and grooves pressed into the metal. It's tempting to run her fingers over them.

"And probably end up floating in vacuum for it, no thanks." Pulling herself upright again, she makes a mental note of the junction she's in so she can tell one of the scientists later. They're probably already aware of it -- hell, for all she knows one of the scientists are manually steering this kino right now -- but, well.

"Better safe than sorry, right?"

The kino floats away. Shaking her head at her own foolishness, she gets herself moving again.

  


* * *

  


It's kinda embarrassing, she thinks, talking to them. Maybe not as bad as talking to _herself_ , but still. It's easy to forget they're sometimes sent out on a leash, easy to think of them as solitary units, just like her.

"We gotta stop meeting like this," she says, coming across one outside the shuttle doors. She keys the door open and walks inside to check that nothing's changed since her last patrol, the kino following. "People'll start to talk."

When she turns around she almost walks straight into it, her arm coming up defensively and brushing it aside on instinct. It floats back from her push, pauses, then inches closer again.

She wags her finger at it. "Personal space, buddy."

It stops again. Hovers. Waits?

" _Fine_." Rolling her eyes, she walks past, snapping her fingers and pointing to the space at her side as she goes. "Come on, then."

It falls in beside her smoothly, following her out of the shuttle and down the corridor, down the next corridor, past TJ's infirmary, always a faithful foot behind her right side, until after one turn it's just gone, back off exploring or seeking or whatever it is the scientists have programmed it to do.

  


* * *

  


She knows she's not the only one who talks to them. Eli does it. A lot of the scientists do -- she's seen them, _heard_ them. They dictate what they're doing, where they're going, what they're seeing.

"I had that dream again." She's doing inventory in their armoury. "I'm back on Icarus Base, the planet falling apart around us, the evacuation in full swing. The 'gate's open in front of me, flickering."

Behind her, the kino hovers back and forth, switching smoothly from her right to her left and back again.

"My feet feel like they're weighted to the ramp -- I know I need to go through, that it's my only chance -- but I just can't take those last two steps. I can't move."

She picks up one of the G36K's and checks its sights.

"That's when the _Hammond_ beams me up."

She lowers the weapon and smiles.

"Best damn dream, ever."

  


* * *

  


She starts volunteering every time some new opportunity comes up. Initially as a way to keep busy, then more and more to increase her chances of survival. She's not stupid -- she knows full well that every day out here could be their -- _her_ \-- last.

(She has another dream too, sometimes, this one not so _best damn ever_. Young and Rush arguing in the 'gate room, Eli's yelling for help, Destiny shuddering. Her balance wavering with each vibration.

 _Go, go, go!_ Matt rushing past, feet skidding, a look over his shoulder that flashes on her before settling on something further back. _Behind you, James!_

Cold fingers on her throat, sliding over the chain holding her dogtags, her skin crawling as sharp little nails dig --)

So she runs some of the morning PT sessions, and helps Brody with his still. She learns how to cook tubers a dozen different ways in the commissary (not all of the ways are especially palatable, but that may be more the tubers fault than anything else), and how to fix a damaged circuit board with some solder and luck. She reads whatever she can get her hands on (which is not very much) and takes samples for the scientist's off-world when they're too hesitant to leave the ship.

She told a kino, once, _I don't want to die_.

She meant it.

  


* * *

  


She tells herself she's getting better at seeing Matt and Chloe together, better at swallowing that bitter pill of rejection and humiliation, but the truth is it still hurts. He's an ass, and she doesn't love him -- they didn't date long enough for that, she reminds herself; didn't "date", period -- but still. Would it kill him to apologise? To acknowledge the fact that they'd had _something_?

Leaving the commissary, she heads off down the corridors, taking every second right and every third left until she's in a quiet little alcove, out of sight and out of sound. Her face falls.

There's a soft hum behind her and she whirls around, striking out hard. Her hand slaps against the kino, careening it into the nearest bulkhead. It hits with a metal screech that makes her flinch, and she hisses, "leave. me. _alone_."

It does.

  


* * *

  


She corners Eli, after, and offers him the chocolate she won the last time she played poker.

"Kino in section 6J. I need you to wipe it."

He stares at the chocolate but doesn't take it, shifting nervously on the balls of his feet. "Okay, so I know I shouldn't ask this because you're kinda scaring me with this whole --" he waves his hands in her general direction, "-- Cammy White, kill-me-with-one- _look_ , thing but --"

She slaps the chocolate down on his console, cutting off his rambling. "So don't."

  


* * *

  


She remembers her initial reaction to finding one outside her quarters and the accusations she levelled at Eli for it, back when everything was so new and raw and terrifying (as opposed to now, when it's less-new and raw and terrifying), and decides maybe her first impression was the correct one.

So she makes an effort to start spending more time around people and less in the semi-abandoned corridors, which really just means hanging around the infirmary a lot, folding bandages and talking to TJ.

She'd almost forgotten what it was like to have someone talk back when she tells them something. It's nice.

  


* * *

  


She helps out Eli for a change and learns that most of the kinos floating around the ship these days are on some form of autopilot, turned on by the scientists and set to roam on some very vague search parameters that may or may not ever find something interesting enough to trigger a record-and-return command.

She actually hasn't seen any kinos up close in awhile, not since that last one in the alcove, and she's tried telling herself that she doesn't _miss_ them, per se, but that's not exactly true.

So she tracks one down, winding her way through the corridors until she finds one alone and zig-zagging slowly. She steps in front of it and watches it pull up short and then begin to back away.

"Wait!" she says.

The kino halts again, hovering about a foot away.

She contemplates what to say to a tiny robot-like flying machine that may or may not be (and most likely, probably, certainly _isn't_ ) the same one she yelled at, and settles on gesturing down the hall behind her. "Wanna explore?"

  


* * *

  


Three turns later, she looks to the side and sees it still there, her own little personal shadow faithfully tagging along.

She smiles.

  


* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> [anr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr)     |      [anr](https://anr.livejournal.com)     |      [anr](https://anr.dreamwidth.org)     |      [anr](https://pinboard.in/u:anr)     |      [anretc](https://anretc.tumblr.com)


End file.
